Global Consciousness Project

Registering Coherence and
Resonance
in the
World

"The Global Consciousness Project, also known as the EGG Project, is an international multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others continuously collecting data from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites worldwide. The archive contains over 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second."

Posts Tagged ‘bigot’

You tell Ann Coulter (the White Supremacist) and Rush Limbaugh (the drug addict) to go to Hell!

Aside from now being aged 72 years – making him the OLDEST president ever to ever accede to the office at age 70 (he’s fond of superlatives, you know, and Reagan was 69 when he became president) – he probably needs Read the rest of this entry »

Is Republican Alabama Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III suitable to be United States Attorney General?

Some say “yes,” others say “no.”

Let’s examine his record – it should speak for itself. The legal term for that concept is “res ipsa loquitur.”

1.) Sessions said of the SCOTUS decision in Shelby County v. Holder (570 U.S.___(2013)), an Alabama-based case which gutted important parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that “Shelby County has never had a history of denying voters and certainly not now,” even though Shelby County’s history of discrimination is well-documented and ongoing when in 2008 the small town of Calera in Shelby County drew a gerrymandered voting map which excluded their only Black councilman out of office.

Before Calera’s local elections in 2008 the town had redrawn its city boundaries which – even though the town’s Black voting-age population had grown from 13-16% – eliminated the only majority-Black district which had been represented by Ernest Montgomery since 2004, and decreased the voting-age Black population from 71-30% by adding three overwhelmingly White subdivisions while failing to include a large surrounding predominately Black-populated neighborhood.

2.) When Sessions was Alabama Attorney General he supported the “separate but equal” policy ensconced in Alabama’s 1901 Constitution in Amendment 111 which to this day deprives impoverished children in Alabama of a right to public education because public support for school funding collapsed after its passage, and since the early 1990’s created enormous funding disparities in school systems statewide which remain, despite legislative attempts to remedy.

By many accounts, the 2016 Presidential Election year is a complete campaign in the ass. Two deeply flawed candidates manipulated and exposed deeply flawed processes in both major political parties, not the least of which is for the GOP, how to vet their candidates more thoroughly, and have the ability to remove them from official party candidacy, and for the Democrats, how to maintain candidate neutrality, and prevent party officials from influencing candidates of the top officials’ choosing toward nomination. I predict many much-needed changes on the horizon for both parties… following the November General Election.

WARNING: This is a long post. It is also my final political post before the election.

I am not an editorial writer but today I am going to play one on Facebook. First, let me say, everyone is welcome to comment; however, if your comment uses foul language or is abusive to anyone else, your comment will be deleted. One of the great problems we have today is our lack of ability to disagree and still have civil discourse; therefore, we will practice it or be censured. Keep in mind, this is my opinion and you do not have to agree with it. Thank your First Amendment rights for that.

By now, we all know this presidential election cycle has presented us with the two poorest candidates in memory, perhaps in all of American history. Certainly there have been poor candidates running for one party or the other throughout our history but not facing one another in the same election.

They have turned the presidential debates into bad Saturday Night Live skits. In fact, I doubt the writers of SNL would have been able to dream up anything this hideous. The American political scene will never be the same and Read the rest of this entry »

“If you need to carry a gun in church, His Grace is NOT sufficient, and stop pretending you believe that it is.”

Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler has – like many Alabama politicians – stuck his big flat foot into his gaping stupid mouth… again.

This time, he’s on record as saying that, “Church attendees should pack. Each church should have a vigilance committee of individuals who pack and who develop their own plans for defense from an attack. Calling 911 and waiting for government defense will not work. Without armed citizens in the church congregation, they are sitting ducks for criminals and terrorists.”

Late night Tweet by Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, which, as one respondent wrote, “I’ll attribute this to tequila shots.”

Until he was elected to the office of State Auditor, Jim Zeigler was merely a laughingstock and perennial candidate for various state-level offices having campaigned six times, whose Read the rest of this entry »

For a decade or so, Hobby Lobby and its owners, the Green family, have been generous benefactors of a Christian ministry that until recently was run by Bill Gothard, a controversial religious leader who has long promoted a strict and authoritarian version of Christianity. Gothard, a prominent champion of Christian home-schooling, has decried[1] the evils of dating, rock music, and Cabbage Patch dolls[2]; claimed[3] public education teaches children “how to commit suicide” and undermines spirituality; contended[4] that mental illness is merely “varying degrees of irresponsibility”; and urged wives to “submit to the leadership”[5] of their husbands. Critics of Gothard have associated[6]him[7] with Christian Reconstructionism[8], an ultrafundamentalist movement that yearns for a theocracy, and accused[9] him of running a cultlike organization. In March, he was pressured to resign[1] from his ministry, the Institute in Basic Life Principles, after being accused by more than 30 women of sexual harassment and molestation—a charge Gothard denies.

The Institute traces it origins to 1964, when Gothard designed a college seminar based on biblical principles to help teenagers. The ministry says[15] it was established “for the purpose of introducing people to the Lord Jesus Christ” and to give individuals, families, businesses, and governments “clear instruction and training on how to find success by following God’s principles found in Scripture.” The group, which operates what it calls “training centers” across the United States and abroad, says more than 2.5 million people have attended its paid events, which have brought in tens of millions of dollars in revenue. Gothard and the Institute have drawn support [16]from conservative politicians, including Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue. The Duggar family, the stars of the reality show 19 Kids and Counting, have been high-profile advocates[17] of Gothard’s home-schooling curriculum and seminars. (One of Gothard’s alleged victims has called[18] on the Duggars to break with Gothard and the Institute.) Don Venoit, a conservative evangelical who has long been a critic of Gothard, contends[19] that Gothard’s approach to Christian theology emphasizing obedience to authority creates a “culture of fear.” In 1984, Ronald Allen, now a professor of Bible exposition at Dallas Theological Seminary, observed[20] that Gothard’s teachings were “a parody of patriarchalism” and “the basest form of male chauvinism I have ever heard in a Christian context.” He added, “Gothard has lost the biblical balance of the relationship between women and men as equals in relationship. His view is basically anti-woman.”

We’re good with Sharia Law as long as it’s for business purposes.

Think about that next time someone’s favorite religious nut job goes to court.

Because of extremist, right-wing religious radicals, women are again being relegated to second class citizens, WITHOUT full rights and being further victimized by having access denied to birth control/oral contraceptives – i.e., Ortho Novum 777, progesterone, estrogens, etc. – NOT abortion.

“At issue here are regulations promulgated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA), which, as relevant here, requires specified employers’ group health plans to furnish “preventive care and screenings” for women without “any cost sharing requirements,” 42 U. S. C. §300gg–13(a)(4). Congress did not specify what types of preventive care must be covered; it authorized the Health Resources and Services Administration, a component of HHS, to decide.”

One’s private personal religious beliefs should never be on trial.

Yet now, because of extremist right-wing radicals, the door is now opened wide to mandate any employee of a “closely held” multi-national corporation, to FORCE them to adhere to THEIR religious beliefs… even when it jeopardizes their health.

As the guest spoke, it occurred to me that the primary difference between this era, and the era of the late Civil Rights leader is that the exceeding majority of today’s youthful musicians are out for the almighty dollar, rather than speaking their hearts and minds for the causes of truth, justice, and the American way.

It’s all about the money.

And according to some, there is perhaps no better representative of the “me” generation than Taylor Swift.

Not being familiar with the body of Miss Swift’s work, I must rely upon interviews with her, and from remarks by those whom are familiar with her work. And it seems that there are many who utterly despise her work, for no other reason than that “practically every song she sings is about herself.”

Some weeks back, my deacon had shared with us about this horrific tragedy. The long and short of it is that the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama had masterminded the murder of a Catholic priest in Birmingham whom solemnized a wedding.

Journalist Greg Garrison’s story is compelling.

“BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) The 1921 murder of the Rev. James E. Coyle on the front porch of his rectory was no ordinary slaying. Involved were the anti-Catholic Ku Klux Klan, a future Supreme Court justice and a preacher’s daughter who secretly married a Puerto Rican.

In her book “Rising Road: A True Tale of Love, Race and Religion in America,” Ohio State University law professor Sharon Davies digs deep into the Coyle’s murder—and the dark chapter of anti-Catholicism in American history.

“There are so many things about this story that are really compelling,” said Davies, who stumbled across the case while doing research for a law journal article. “When I found it, I was absolutely captivated by it. This story needed to be told. We can’t afford to forget this.”

The murder trial was historic partly because future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black defended the accused killer, Edwin R. Stephenson, a Methodist minister and member of the Ku Klux Klan.”

The Klan paid the legal expenses for Stephenson, who was acquitted by a jury that included several Klan members, including the jury foreman, Davies said.

“The Klan held enormously successful fundraising drives across Alabama to raise money for the defense,” Davies said. “They portrayed it as a Methodist minister father who shot a Catholic priest trying to steal his daughter away from her religion, to seduce his daughter into the Catholic Church.”

Stephenson, who conducted weddings at the Jefferson County Courthouse, was accused of gunning down Coyle after becoming irate over Coyle officiating at the marriage of Stephenson’s daughter, Ruth, to a Puerto Rican, Pedro Gussman.

The recent release of Davies’ book comes at the same time as a documentary highlighting the case made by Irish filmmaker Pat Shine, Coyle’s grandnephew.

As defense attorney, Black had Gussman summoned into the courtroom and questioned him about his curly hair and skin color. Lights were dimmed in the courtroom so the darkness of Gussman’s complexion would be accentuated, said an Oct. 20, 1921, newspaper account of the final day of the trial. Black won the acquittal.

“That really does illustrate, beautifully and awfully, the lengths that this future Supreme Court justice was willing to go to in defense of a killer,” Davies said. “It only worked because it exploited the bigotries of the day, anti-Catholicism and racism.”

Black joined the Klan 18 months after the trial, Davies said. He was a U.S. senator from Alabama from 1927 to 1937, and served on the U.S. Supreme Count until his death in 1971, gradually becoming one of the court’s most liberal members.

After the acquittal, Stephenson once again was a regular at the courthouse, conducting marriages. “For awhile after the trial, he was a hero,” Davies said. “He was the Klan’s champion, celebrated at Klan initiation ceremonies.”

But Stephenson never reconciled with his daughter, who divorced Gussman, moved to Chicago and died of tuberculosis in 1931 at age 28. “She was their only child,” Davies said. “I’m sure that was a grievous wound for them.”

Gussman was killed on Valentine’s Day 1934 in a hit-and-run accident steps away from where Coyle was killed, in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral. “They never found the person who hit him,” Davies said.

People don’t grasp today the level of anti-Catholic bigotry that was rampant in America at the time of Coyle’s slaying, Davies said.

State lawmakers enacted the Alabama Convent Inspection law in 1919 to authorize officials without a warrant to search convents to see whether any person found inside the convent was being “involuntarily confined” or “unlawfully held,” Davies said.

“My students laugh,” Davies said. “They can’t believe these laws existed. State legislatures were convinced they needed these laws to protect against the Catholic threat.”

There was a fear that Protestant girls would be kidnapped, forced to become Catholic nuns and held against their will, Davies said.

The Coyle case played into those fears because Ruth, as an independent-minded 18-year-old, had converted to Catholicism against her father’s will. Coyle fought the Klan’s attacks on Catholics, and federal officials at one point warned Coyle’s bishop that Coyle had been the target of death threats, Davies said.

“There were threats to burn the church to the ground,” she said. “This was a time when lectures and sermons were routinely given from pulpits … that spewed anti-Catholicism.”

The racist impulses exploited by the young defense attorney were later curbed by Supreme Court decisions in which Black played a key role during his 34 years on the Supreme Court. He joined unanimous opinions in the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision that outlawed school segregation, and the 1967 Loving vs. Virginia case that overturned Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage.

“It’s a good thing to remember where he began,” Davies said. “It gives us a greater appreciation for where he ended up. It reflected the movement of the nation.”